Sexual harassment and aesthetic labour: when to intervene?

Discussion paper

A fundamental problem posed to those working in the tourism sector is sexual harassment. Many employees, especially women, in the tourism hospitality industry are sexually harassed in their everyday job.

Key words: Sexual harassment, observers, aesthetic labour, tourism hospitality sector.



One of the key issues facing those working in the tourism sector is sexual harassment. Many workers, especially women, in tourism hospitality industry become victims of sexual harassment in their everyday job. In hospitality industry sexual harassment is associated with the characteristics of both the employees and the nature of service, which involves close relationships between employees and customers. Sexual harassment in the workplace has been said to be widespread and damaging phenomenon, which can harm both individuals and workplaces involved. It may cause high turnover and create intimidating, hostile and/or offensive work environments. Sexual harassment can be for example sexual behaviour using physical, verbal or visual means, which is unwelcome or offensive and is either repeated or so significant that it has a detrimental effect on another person. Customers have been identified as the major perpetrators of harassment as well as peer workers and even managers and bosses. Particularly at risk are younger less educated women working in low-skilled roles and minority racial groups. Fear of losing their job, being treated badly and the claim not been taken seriously are the main factors of these incidents not being reported. This paper discusses about sexual harassment and aesthetic labour; aesthetic labour essentially promotes judgement in looks, thereby creating a bigger likelihood of sexual harassment. It will also talk about observers of these incidents and poses a question of when to intervene.

Gender-definition includes sexualisation of the woman worker as a part of the job; this needs to be changed due to the fact that it makes sexual harassment systematically inevitable for all the women who must take the jobs the society has to offer (Mackinnon, 1979). Sexual harassment occurs when submission to or rejection of sexual advances is a term of employment, is used as a basis for making employment decisions, or if the advances create a hostile or offensive work environment (Giuffre & Williams 1994: 382). Mackinnon (1979) says that the sexualisation of women on the job is often seen as an attitude or a feeling rather than a mode of behaviour or an institutional practise. Most women wish to choose whether, when, where, and with whom to have sexual relationships, as one important part of exercising control over their lives; sexual harassment denies this choice in the process of denying the opportunity to study or work without being subjected to sexual exactions (Mackinnon, 1979: 25).

Harassment and abuse may be used by those in power to control others, and the fact that hospitality labour organisation are strongly hierarchical; power and seniority are often synonymous, and senior positions are keenly sought after by those in inferior positions (Poulston, 2008). Although various causes have been brought up, such as workers’ low status and the particular characteristics of service work, these do not effectively explain why young women in hospitality sector are harassed more than those elsewhere (Gutek & Cohen, 1987). A research of American hospitality graduates showed, that 39% of male respondents and 65% of female respondents thought most women in their field had been harassed (Poulston, 2008: 236). In a similar study in England, it was found that 57% of hospitality students returning from supervised work experience had been sexually harassed (Poulston, 2008: 236).

Aesthetic labour foregrounds embodiment, revealing how the corporeality, not just the feelings, of employees are organizationally appropriated and transmuted for commercial benefit (Warhurst & Nickson, 2009: 389). This is intended to appeal to the senses of the customers, creating effective service-interaction bases, typically, on having employees perceived to be good looking or simply having the right look (Tsaur & Tang, 2013). When focusing on employees’ looks it is possible to identify the way in which aesthetic labour extends to sexualised labour (Warhurst & Nickson, 2009: 390).

Sexual harassment is a social act that is interpreted by the victim as well as by observers, and how observers perceive potentially harassing behaviour has a number of important implications (Elkins & Velez-Castrillon, 2008: 1438). When witnessing or learning of harassing behaviours, observers themselves may initiate action such as reporting (Bowes-Sperry & O’Leary-Kelly, 2005). It is important to understand hoe observers perceive potential harassing behaviours (Ryan & Wessel, 2012). The attitudes and personalities of observers have significant main, mediating, and moderating effects on their sexual harassment judgments (Elkins & Velez-Castrillon, 2008). It has also been found that attitudes also mediate the relationship between observer gender and sexual harassment judgments (O’Leary-Kelly, et al. 2004). Women are less tolerant of harassment and rated behaviour as more inappropriate and more harassing than men (Bowes-Sperry & O’Leary-Kelly 2005). Observers’ attitudes seem to interact with observer gender, harasser gender, and legal standards in influencing observers’ sexual harassment judgments (Gottlieb & Carver, 1980). The research also shows that if the observers have personally known past victims of harassment, they are more likely to view behaviour as unwelcome, severe, pervasive, and as harassment (Ryan & Wessel, 2012).
Sexual harassment poses a big problem for many men and women in the tourism hospitality sector. It has to be made certain that co-workers and managers take action to tackle this widespread problem.

References:

Bowes-Sperry, L. & O’Leary-Kelly, A. M. (2005) To act or not to act: the dilemma faced by sexual harassment observers. Academy of Management Review, Vol. 30, Issue. 2, p288–306.

Giuffre, P. and Williams, C.L. (1994) Boundary Lines: Labelling Sexual Harassment in Restaurants. Gender & Society, Vol. 8, Issue 3, p378-401.

Poulston, J. (2008) Metamorphosis in hospitality: A tradition of sexual harassment. International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 27, Issue 2, p232–240.

The paper dealt with the topic that seemed quite popular within the conference strand: sexual harassment. However the inclusion of the labour aesthetics and the discussion of the right time for intervention helped the title to stand from the crowd.

The writer exhibits excellent skills in literature review and had obviously gathered numerous academic sources for the arguments presented in the paper. The writing style of the author was very straightforward and professional making it easy to follow the main points of the paper. The different viewpoints of sexual harassment were carefully considered and the gravity of the issue was prevalent throughout the paper. By mapping the different groups that generate targets and potential perpetrators, the writer gives a good understanding of the sources for sexual harassment. Also a notable thing was the admittance that despite different suggested reasons for the sexual harassment having been suggested, a concrete source of the behaviour had not been identified, generating a need for further research. One of the most useful sides of the paper was the discussion of the different ways potential observers of sexual harassment react, depending on their gender and attitudes.

As a small source of the criticism: more approaches for the future battle against sexual harassment could have been suggested, as the title was implying that the right time for intervening was going to be discussed as a major point. The arguments of aesthetic labour linking with sexual labour were interesting and invited more discussion of the topic. Therefore it was a bit disappointing that there was fairly little material of the issue on paper.

Another suggested improvement for the article would be increasing the level of critical analysis. The writer made good use of the existing source material and brought different viewpoints to the table, yet did not bring many original ideas or much criticism of the existing literature to the discussion. Despite the writing and research skills of the author, the paper is not extraordinarily inventive or original. However, this could also be just a personal opinion and the paper still has its own merits that are not overshadowed by the nit-picking presented in this review.

In conclusion, the writer was successful in creating a clear definition of the different aspects of the sexual harassment in tourism sector. Rather than dealing with every single aspect it focuses on the several and gives them a good framework in which it discusses them. Despite some of its small shortcomings, the paper was still enjoyable to read and easy to follow. In the future, the paper could be used as a starting point for discussion of new strategies to counter sexual harassment.